September 2006  

Rosemary    ©    by    Joan Thiel Blessing
 

At home she tends her darling dahlias,
fills rockeries with baby's breath, dianthus,
flax, thyme, a clutch of hen and chicks. Pauses
to admire the glittering hydrangeas.
Like her namesake, she is straight and sturdy,
evergreen. On the bus to Kent, she gingers
up her brood of day trippers with stories
of royals decamping at Great Dixter,
Vita and Virginia at Sissinghurst,
monks fingering their beads among rare blooms.
At each estate, as tourists alight, burst
upon a maze of verdant shrub-walled rooms,
their weary guide withdraws behind a wall.
Mum with no favorites, she ignores them all.

Previously published in the North Carolina Poetry Society's
Pinesong: Awards 2006. Used with the poet's permission.
NOTICE: The copyright © for this poem belongs to the poet.